American Zombie is Among Us

Updated on April 27, 2011

Poster for American Zombie DVD Release

"American Zombie"

Zombies are among us. Usually you would associate zombies with blood-curdling screams and people running to a secluded shack in the middle of nowhere to be eaten alive. Movies that usually come to mind are George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” “Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead”and the most recent,“I Am Legend.” The zombies in Grace Lee’s “American Zombie” are much scarier than the ones in the above-mentioned films. Lee’s zombies are just like us humans. SCARY. Grace Lee, known for making documentaries, teamed up with a friend, Rebecca Sonnenshine, to co-write a fictional documentary about zombies living among humans in Los Angeles. In the movie, Grace plays herself and teams up with another filmmaker friend to do a documentary on the zombies whom are very much treated like a new minority. The zombies have trouble getting jobs. Like smokers, there are certain areas in the workplace they’re not allowed to be in such as the kitchen area. There are different types of zombies. Feral zombies are the typical kind most die-hards think about, chasing humans and eating brains. There are the working class zombies that don’t do much, but work in factories 24/7. And then there are the more free-thinking zombies that work in offices, skateboard and pretty much do mostly what typical humans do. The documentary crew interviews everyday zombies. One day the crew discovers there’s an event like Woodstock or Coachella out in the dessert that only zombies are allowed to attend. The filmmakers have to be persistent on acquiring permission to attend the secret mysterious event. At the event the crew is kept away on the last night and their curiosity leads to the ugly truth. Making the ugly truth look so good is its wonderful cast, bringing life to these ‘dead’ zombies. Austin Basis shines as Ivan the skateboarding zombie artist who works vigilantly on his fanzine, ‘Hollywood Undead.’ Suzy Nakamura plays Judy, the vegan office girl that fantasizes about marrying a human. “American Zombie” is very clever. The film has a social consciousness. It conquers the everyday problems of minorities, homelessness and racism as well as other problems of everyday human beings. One zombie even seeks out a renewal in faith by joining a Christian group. The pastor, open to working with zombies, says the controversial saying, “Jesus was the first zombie.” Are you enlightened yet? To find out the ugly truth you’ll have to catch it while it’s currently in limited release in few theaters. I viewed a screening tonight, Tues. April Fool's Day, 2008 that included a Q & A with cast and the writers at the Laemmle Sunset V in Los Angeles. It’s playing for 2 more nights at that location. “American Zombie” is currently playing or soon-to-be in various American cities such as Austin, TX and Columbus, Ohio in limited release. If you miss it in theaters, catch the DVD release July 8th, 2008. If you don’t see the zombies, maybe they’ll go out of their way to see YOU! Who's the fool now?

Ivan the skateboarding zombie

Ivan (Austin Basis) plays a skateboarding convenience store clerk that happens to also be a zombie.